Iran Buries Late President Ebrahim Raisi, Vowing Expansion of War on Israel

Iran buried President Ebrahim Raisi on Thursday, wrapping up a days-long funeral process that began shortly after his death on Sunday in a helicopter crash.

After a bit of dithering, the regime decided to proclaim Raisi a “martyr” and treat him like a religious icon, holding a procession through several cities and burying him in a tomb at the revered Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad, the city of Raisi’s birth.

The regime’s choice of burial site provoked some anger in Iran, as his lavish funeral irritated citizens suffering through a terrible economy because of his policies. Iranians tired of living in poverty under the heel of their wealthy theocracy were also annoyed that Raisi was given a favored burial site close to the grandfather of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The regime still managed good turnout for Raisi’s funeral procession:

The Times of Israel (TOI) noted that turnout for the funeral of Iranian terror master Qassem Soleimani was much larger after he was liquidated by a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2020. TOI saw the smaller funeral on Thursday as “a potential sign of the public’s feelings about Raisi’s presidency,” which was marked by economic disaster and brutal suppression of dissent.

Khamenei prayed and spoke at Raisi’s funeral, accompanied by Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the genocidal Iran-supported terrorist organization Hamas. Khamenei mourned Raisi’s “martyrdom-like passing,” although it is difficult to see what Raisi was a “martyr” too, other than poor helicopter maintenance and questionable piloting choices.

The regime decided to style Raisi as a “man of the battlefield,” as one placard at his funeral put it. Aside from brutalizing a large number of his own unarmed citizens, Raisi’s only “battlefield” has been Iran’s craven support for terrorist proxies like Hamas, the Shiite militias of Iraq, and the Houthi pirates of Yemen, in a perpetual undeclared war against Israel and the United States. Iran’s only foray into direct military action during Raisi’s term of office did not go well.

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The chief of Iran’s terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, nevertheless praised Raisi’s supposed battlefield leadership during the funeral on Friday for another victim of the helicopter crash, IRGC Brig. Gen. Mehdi Mousavi.

“Martyr Raeisi actually demonstrated indescribable bravery in Operation True Promise. With the government’s powerful diplomacy, we were able to attack the heart of the arrogance,” Salami said on Friday.

Operation True Promise is Iran’s name for its failed attempt to attack Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones on April 13, ostensibly in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria, that killed several high-ranking IRGC officers. Regime officials and state media constantly claim the attack was a huge success, even though Iran’s weapons were almost all intercepted with minimal damage.

Salami insisted Iran is undaunted after Raisi’s death and is “not afraid of any power,” a belligerence reflected in Ayatollah Khamenei’s remarks during Raisi’s funeral.

“The promise to eliminate Israel will be kept, and we will see the day when Palestine extends from the sea to the river,” Khamenei told Hamas kingpin Haniyeh, an awkward moment for Hamas apologists in the West who spent the past seven months feverishly denying that “from the sea to the river” is a genocide chant.

“The resistance of the people of Gaza has impressed the world. Who would have thought that American universities would support Palestine?” Khamenei said, even more awkwardly for the aforementioned Hamas supporters.

Khamenei and Haniyeh agreed that Iran’s support for the murderous terrorists of Hamas would continue, alongside other “leaders of the axis of resistance.”

Iranian state media eagerly published photos of Gen. Salami and other IRGC officers meeting with representatives from Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis on the sidelines of Raisi’s funeral to plot their expanded war against Israel. Two other Palestinian terrorist gangs, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the LIberation of Palestine, also reportedly attended the meeting.

Iranian media said the council of terrorists discussed “the latest political, social, and military situation and the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation.” The latter is Hamas’ name for the orgy of rape, kidnapping, murder, and infanticide it unleashed against Israeli civilians on October 7.